


Lurking in Shadow

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [161]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avenger Loki (Marvel), Avenger Reader (Marvel), Avengers Tower, Comfort, F/M, Family Bonding, Fear, Fluff, Literal Sleeping Together, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, M/M, Nighttime, Pre-Relationship, Protection, Protective Loki (Marvel), Protectiveness, Reader-Insert, Sharing a Bed, Stark Tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27678289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Sitting around telling ghost stories with your teammates shouldn’t be enough to keep you from sleeping, but one specific teammate has other plans.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [161]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 6
Kudos: 175





	Lurking in Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> A few weeks ago, I asked readers on my Tumblr if they would be okay reading a Lullaby that started out a little bit spooky as long as I promised that it would end with some fluff. I got a lot of "Yes!" responses and very few "Noooo"s so this is that Lullaby. I didn't get gory or graphic or (hopefully) very realistic, but there is some mention of ghosts and monsters and demons in the first half of this fic--just in case you're going to read this at night and you're worried about getting too spooked. (Personally, I don't think it's scary enough to spook someone, but I'd rather be overly-cautious and warn for it than risk giving you nightmares with something that's meant to comfort you.)

It didn’t seem like something that could have been an issue. Pretty much everybody was hanging out together in one of the living rooms, draped over various seats and each other and just...talking. The conversation drifted towards spooky stories, and even that seemed largely harmless. It was getting late, but ghost stories had never really scared you. As long as you weren’t seeing scary images flashing by on a screen, you knew you’d have very little trouble falling asleep. So you stayed right where you were, curled into the corner of the couch, and listened with delight as Steve told you all about the haunted building where he’d lived with his mother. Bucky was next, and, sure, his stories leaned a little more towards gore and brutality, but they still gave you those delicious goosebumps.

Thor got into it next. He sat forward a bit in his chair, shoulders hunched and face contorted into a spooky glare, as he spoke of the spirits and creatures of Asgard. His tale seemed a little too fantastical for you to fully believe. But, really, who were you to judge? For all you knew, he was telling the truth. Earth certainly wasn’t Asgard.

At first, you thought you were just seeing things. Thor spun his yarn about creatures of the...well, not quite the _sea_ because he was talking about the air, but the creatures sounded a lot like descriptions of Earthly Krakens. And you started to catch a glimpse of something on the chair behind him. It was like...tentacles. You blinked your eyes a few times in hopes of clearing the sleepiness from them, but the tentacles remained. Thor’s voice became louder and louder the deeper he got into his story, and the volume seemed to make the tentacles grow larger as well. By the time he reached the climax of his tale, the things behind him were giant and looming and dangerous—and apparently invisible to everybody else. Thor made eye contact with you, then, and offered a dangerous smile, and the tentacles undulated forward, right in your direction.

“Fear not, dear lady, ‘tis only a story.” He held one hand out as though to comfort you, and one of the tentacles copied the motion. It made you shiver. You cast an astonished look around the room, but everybody else looked perfectly normal.

Except for Loki. He was ducked down in his chair, and hid the lower half of his face with his hand. You got the sense that he was smiling even as he avoided looking at you. You recognized the body language. Understanding flooded through you, then, and a hot rush of embarrassment.

“I’m not afraid of your story.” Your voice was too sharp at first. You looked back at Thor and winced at him apologetically. “Sorry. It’s...Loki was casting illusions that I think only I could see. Unless the rest of you were all in on it. I thought I was going crazy or something.”

“Yes, that does tend to be the effect he has, doesn’t it?” Thor shot Loki a dirty look, but the latter did not appear to be at all chastised. He did lower his hand, though, and offer you something like a gentle smile. Maybe it was an apology. Certainly it was the closest thing you were likely to get from him. You lowered your eyes to your hands in your lap.

Thankfully, the rest of the team did not dwell on your silliness. There was a moment or two of quiet, but then Clint interrupted it with a story he’d heard at a summer camp when he was a child. Loki did continue to weave his illusions, but it seemed like, now, he was making them visible to everyone in the room. Your attention flickered between the two of them. Loki was illustrating Clint’s story, bringing it to life even as Clint spoke it aloud. The others murmured appreciatively at the climax of the tale, as Loki’s illusions rose up and hovered threateningly around his head. Clint seemed to appreciate the attention—and the help—and shot Loki a quick smile when his story was over.

The illustrations did give the other stories a bit more of an edge. Before, they were only words. You could listen and choose whether to picture the events in your head—or simply decide to tune someone out if you determined that their tale was too scary. But you couldn’t tear your eyes away from Loki’s illusions. Perhaps it was like watching a train wreck. You knew you should look away. You knew that you were only doing yourself a disservice by soaking in the sights. You knew that something about looking at graphic representations of your teammates’ stories was only going to make it hard for you to sleep. But it was Loki’s magic. It was beautiful, even when he used it for gore and horror.

And they only got more graphic as the night went on. By the time Nat chimed in, spinning her web in a low, eerie voice, Loki’s illusions were entirely too realistic for you. A demon stalked through the room. Its face was twisted with hatred—and hunger—and it eyed up each of the Avengers in turn, as though trying to determine whether it could take them in a fight. You avoided meeting its eyes. Everyone here knew you were the baby, the rookie. You weren’t as fierce or as strong as anyone else. If the demon were real, you would most assuredly become its target. Something like blood dripped off of its face and sizzled on the floor. Your mind told you that you could smell fire and sulfur and evil rolling off of it even though that was absolutely ridiculous. In perfect time with Nat’s story, it reached out as though to play with Wanda’s hair and she laughed a little uneasily. Your stomach churned. Somehow a little gasp—practically a whimper—escaped your lips, and you smacked your hand across your mouth to muffle any other humiliating sounds.

Few of the others seemed to notice anything, but the demon did. It looked up from Wanda and craned its neck to fix its horrible burning eyes on you. You cast a pleading look at Loki, but he was making a show out of paying attention to Natasha. That only made things worse. Could he lose control of his illusions? Could they wrest themselves away from him and become sentient? Once again, the logical part of your brain told you that you were being stupid and childish, but your fear was quick to smother it.

The demon approached you. It was awful, but you forced yourself to look away. Still, you told yourself you could hear the creaking of its movements, each shambling step towards you. And then it was right next to you. You imagined the way it would hover, the way it would lean down and maybe lift one hand towards your hair. Loki’s illusions couldn’t be touched, you knew: they would disappear into nothingness if they came into contact with a living being. But you still didn’t want it reaching out to you. You hurled yourself out of your chair with a nigh-inaudible squeak. When you opened your eyes, of course the demon was gone.

And of course everyone’s eyes were on you.

“Sorry, I’m just really tired,” you mumbled. “I’m...going to bed. ‘Night, guys.”

Your bedroom wasn’t much better, really. It was quiet and dark and cool, yes, but also...hollow without the sound of your friends’ laughter and their voices. You did your best to think of other things, of happier things, as you changed into your pyjamas and slid beneath the covers. Puppies and kittens and, hell, unicorns pranced through your mind’s eye even as you shut your actual eyes tightly to block out the threat of demons.

It didn’t help much.

It was hard to say just how long you laid awake. If you weren’t staring at the ceiling, you kept your eyes screwed shut. You could have been scrolling through your phone, perhaps, except of course you’d left it on the arm of the chair in the living room. Maybe the others wouldn’t notice it. You could only hope, right? It was possible that they _might_ buy your story about being tired, but leaving your phone behind struck you as a glaring piece of evidence that you’d run in fear.

There. In the hallway. Noises. Your body stiffened under the covers, but just a moment later, you felt yourself relaxing again. It was footsteps—real, corporeal footsteps likely belonging to Thor or Loki. Because they slept on this floor too. Because they were living creatures who actually existed in the world and had their own places here. You pressed your hand to your forehead and laughed quietly to yourself. Maybe you should have gone to bed as soon as they’d started in on the scary stories. If you had, you might be sleeping peacefully right now.

Things had only barely gone quiet out in the hallway when the activity started up in your room. It started as a cool prickling somewhere deep inside you, that same dread that you felt when someone got too close to you. You opened your eyes and took a quick glance around your room, but there was nothing there. If you slipped a little too deep into self-deprecation, or into mentally yelling at yourself for being such a baby, surely no one would know. But then you thought you heard something. Had you been wrong? Was there someone here after all? You strained your eyes in the darkness, trying desperately to make some sense of the shadows that seemed to dance through the air, but nothing was happening. Until…

Just as you were about to yank the covers up over your head entirely, things shifted. A face materialized out of the shadows only inches away from your own face, grinning wide and dangerous at you. Without a second thought, you leapt out of bed and threw the blankets over whoever it was. A guttural “No!” fell from your lips as you threw yourself through your doorway. 

Your cooler head did not prevail until you were standing alone in the hallway outside your door. Dim lights glowed near the ceilings—nightlights, sort of, meant to illuminate the hallways just enough to keep people from running into things, you figured. The bedroom door gaped open, dark and haunting, and you stared at it as you fought to catch your breath. Whatever had been in there with you, it was sure to follow right behind you, wasn’t it?

A hand brushed against the small of your back, and your heart leapt directly out of your throat. You turned around with something dangerously close to a scream, only to run right into Loki himself. For the second time that night, embarrassment flooded through you. He didn’t have to say a word. His lips were curled into that same goddamned, way-too-fucking-sexy self-satisfied smirk he wore all too often around you. He liked teasing you. As you watched, his brows drew together in something like concern, but you knew better, didn’t you? “Is everything alright?”

The face had most certainly been another of his illusions, which meant that it had disappeared as soon as your blanket had touched it. You growled quietly and tried to shove him away from you with your hands on his chest, but he barely moved, except to cover the backs of your hands with his.

“That’s _mean._ ” You hated how shaky your voice sounded. Anyone else on the team, they’d surely have taken this all in stride and laughed at him, or maybe jokingly threatened to kill him, but your heart was still beating way too fast. Unwilling to let yourself look any more childish or whiny, you choked back the other things you wanted to say— _You scared me. I hate you. You’re beautiful._

He didn’t stop touching your hands. With his touch, he made it so you had to keep touching him, and then he brushed his thumbs gently along your skin. His quiet laughter made its way to your ears and kept the flames burning in your cheeks. He knew you too well. If he hadn’t been essentially holding your hands right now, you would have yanked yourself away from him and flung your door shut in his face. “You’re trembling. Truly, I didn’t mean to frighten you _this_ badly.”

“It’s fine.” You finally managed to duck your head a little to escape his heated gaze. He had to know what that did to people, didn’t he? How that look made their hearts stutter in their chests? Because surely you weren’t the only one who felt that way when he looked at you like that. “It’s not a big deal. I just have to wake up early for a workout with Steve and Nat and, thanks to you, I don’t know how much sleep I’ll actually be getting. Thanks a lot.” It was hard to try to convince yourself that you sounded strong, rather than sulky or pouty, but...whatever. You were still a little freaked out. 

Now, at long last, Loki did seem to hold some shred of regret for what he’d done. He still had yet to let go of you, and was instead continuing to stroke the backs of your hands. He stilled his fingers and pressed down against them a little more firmly. It was something almost like a hug—from someone like Loki, maybe it _was_ a hug. 

“Sleep with me.”

He said it so simply, so matter-of-factly, that you almost believed that he couldn’t possibly have any idea what those words did to you. You sputtered a bit and tried to pull away, but he still wouldn’t let you. When you looked up at him, his eyes were wide and earnest. 

“I mean it. Come on. I’ll keep you safe from the nightmares.”

Some small, annoying part of you really wanted to argue with him on this. It wasn’t appropriate. It wasn’t smart. It was downright stupid, really. But then he slipped his hand into yours and made as if to tug you towards his bedroom door, and the words dried in your throat. 

You weighed your options. You weren’t likely to get much sleep alone in your own bed, but neither were you likely to get much sleep lying beside _him_. And you didn’t want him to feel like he had to do something like this, but when did Loki really ever do _anything_ he didn’t want to? You did make a nominal amount of fuss as he brought you over to the door and ushered you inside, but the interior of his room made you fall still at last. It smelled like him. It wasn’t overwhelming or cologne-y, but...it smelled like him. And the darkness in here somehow felt more inviting than that of your own room. It was almost welcoming. You felt him look at you, then, and it was hard to be absolutely certain, but you could have sworn that you felt him smile.

“There’s plenty of room.” He gestured towards the bed. His covers were rumpled, as though he’d already been under them when he heard you making all that noise in the hallway. You thought of your own bed, and the way your covers held on to the warmth of your body, and suddenly you were very interested in what his covers felt like. You crossed your arms in front of yourself. 

“I’m sorry.” You kept your voice low. This all felt so _stupid._ You were a grown-ass woman working with the Avengers and you were this terrified of what were essentially little animated characters. You should go back to your own room and try to forget all this ever happened. 

“Don’t apologize. I’m the one who frightened you. This is the least I can do. Which side would you like?” 

If you were anyone else, maybe this would have been more surprising to you. But you spent time with Loki here and there—you weren’t best friends or anything, but...you were comfortable together, at least. He knew how you took your coffee, and you knew how he took his tea. You worked well together on missions and you hung out together when you were home. It wasn’t his fault that you currently had a big, giant, incredibly inconvenient crush on him. 

But if he insisted…

You tried not to let out too big a sigh and then climbed into bed. Into _his_ bed. Into Loki’s bed. You busied yourself with wriggling under his blankets and then you just laid there on your back, looking up at the ceiling. Loki hesitated for a moment or two before joining you, but you didn’t have the time to work up the courage to look at him before he did finally slide into bed beside you. You kept yourself incredibly stiff and fought to close your eyes. Could he hear your heart racing? It wasn’t fear anymore—or, perhaps more accurately, it wasn’t with the _same_ fear anymore. 

Silence stretched between you. Unlike all the other times like this you’d had with him, this time felt so incredibly awkward. Were you supposed to be speaking to him right now? What could you say? Did he want to go to sleep? Did he even need sleep? Were you taking up too much space? 

His voice sounded in the darkness, and made you flinch. “You can...” He sounded uncharacteristically uncertain of himself. It made you want to open your eyes and look at him, but something in you refused. Maybe he needed the privacy. “...come closer, if you’d like. I won’t bite.”

You laughed despite yourself. “It’s not you I’m afraid of. It’s your magic, apparently.” After a few long moments, you did bring yourself to open your eyes and look at him. It was hard not to gasp. He was so close, and he was already looking at you. And his face was...it was soft. Maybe it was just because he was lying in bed, but he looked resplendent, somehow. He quirked an eyebrow at you, and, without a word, you found yourself turning onto your side and moving a little bit closer to him. He lifted his arm just as easily, and made room for you to lie right there beside him. When you put your head on his shoulder, it took everything in you not to sigh contentedly. You had hugged him, here and there, and of course the two of you had had to help each other with first-aid after missions more than once, but this was somehow so much more intimate than that. Should you talk? _Could_ you talk? This seemed like the kind of position that needed some sort of joke to ease the tension, but you couldn’t figure out what to say.

“It’s brave,” he said thoughtfully. His voice was like velvet there, low and dark and lovely. If you didn’t get control of your heartbeat, you were never going to fall asleep tonight, but you weren’t entirely sure that you minded. He trailed his fingertips along your back, along your shoulders, and the pleasant chills that ran through you stole your words away. “Joining the others for tales of ghosts when you know it’ll make it so difficult for you to sleep. That’s something like what Asgardian warriors do.”

You couldn’t stifle the dry laugh—more of a snort, really—and you might have pulled away from him then, if he didn’t tighten his arm around your back. “Yeah? Listening to scary stories is part of your soldiers’ training. I see.”

“No. They expose themselves to the things that scare them. Once you’ve beaten your own mind, what other foe could possibly best you?” There was no trace of humor in his voice. He _probably_ wasn’t teasing you. Still, you hid your face against his shoulder and shook your head.

“I’m not afraid of words. The stories were fine. It was...you know, when you started giving the words an actual form that I started to get...”

He said nothing more, only gave a low hum. He didn’t sound terribly surprised. The longer you stayed here, the more comfortable you got. He went back to tracing patterns on your back through your t-shirt, and all you could do was close your eyes against the chills. If you didn’t know any better, or if you didn’t know more about Loki’s powers, you might have thought he was doing something to make you feel this relaxed and heavy. 

Wait a minute.

Wait just a _god-damned minute_.

With great effort, you forced your eyes open and lifted your head a bit to fix him with a glare. “You did all this on _purpose_ , didn’t you? You knew what you were doing and you knew you were scaring me and you purposely scared me out of bed!” You weren’t quite angry, and you weren’t quite embarrassed, but you felt like you _should_ have been. 

Loki’s only response was to chuckle quietly, low in his throat, before turning his head to press a gentle kiss to your forehead.


End file.
